Frying pans at the ready for pancake day!

Hey lovely people, wanted to share these ideas for a little bit of vegan foodie activism with you and figured this would be the best place for me to post it! (I know... its been a while since I blogged - but there is a good reason... you'll see...)


Chantal xxx



Want to be involved in a little bit of vegan foodie activism?

As you’ll know it’s Shrove Tuesday coming up (17^th) and it would be great if we can blitz the internet with as many vegan pancake recipes as possible!

People and publications will be thinking about it from now, so it would be great if we can all start talking about it across our numerous social media platforms.

If you have pancake recipes on your own blogs and are savvy to this type of thing then please start sharing and tagging!

This coming weekend I’m also going to encourage people to veganise recipes that they find online and to post their own on various sites. If you’d like to do this too here are some sites just to get you started! You add comments below recipes or in some cases add your own recipes fully. Veganise the non-vegan ones!

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3374/perfect-pancakes

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/vegan-blueberry-pancakes/#KCKFuHV72CwJVu6T.97

(this is vegan – maybe chose the non vegan recipes to comment on?)

http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/130487/Pancake-recipe

http://britishfood.about.com/od/pancakeday/r/pancakes.htm

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/american-breakfast-pancakes-141

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/tag-5608/kids-pancake-recipes.aspx

http://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/dairy-free-blueberry-pancakes.html

http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/p/perfect-buttermilkpancakeswithchocolatesauce.html?wtrint=1-Content-_-2-Inspiration-_-3-pancake_day-_-4--_-5-hotspot-_-6-buttermilk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/seasonal-food-and-drink/11402786/When-is-Pancake-Day.html on an article such as this or one of their stored online recipes

If you’re using Twitter then please look out for, and use the trending hashtags nearer the day. Here are some suggestions:

#pancakes #PancakeDay #shrovetuesday #dairyfree #eggfree #crueltyfree #vegan #easy2bvegan etc.

You may or may not be aware that using more than 3 per tweet doesn’t work so well and is offputting to people.

Also please remember to add in pictures of your delicious creations if you have them! Studies show that seeing photographs on a tweet/post significantly enhances its probability to be RT’d.

Of course post on FB, IG and wherever else too!

Although we’ll have missed print deadlines now, if you have the time, you might like to email any newspapers or magazines or other foodie websites with your pancake photos / recipes – perhaps ‘sell’ the idea more by mentioning all of the benefits we associate with eating vegan instead of non vegan.

I’ll also make sure to add more pancake recipes to my new site (details to follow) which will be fully live by then. Next year, I’ll be far more organised for this and will try to get into mainstream media in advance. But for now we can at least hope to help some people see that eggs and dairy just aren’t necessary to make great pancakes!

Please let me know if you have any more ideas that we can share with each other.

Oh and please ask all of your vegan followers to get involved too!

 I’m hungry now… shock…

Love Chantal xx

I'll be adding my American style fluffy ones! ;)

Recipe: BBQ pulled 'pork' sandwich - Vegan-style!

Here's the thing:- when I used to eat meat, like millions of other people, I was pretty partial to something called a 'pulled pork sandwich'. Since I've been Vegan I've actually found that I very rarely miss eating meat or fish - but, just occasionally, my mind would wander back to my carnivorous years - and this is one of the dishes it would linger over.

However, what I've discovered in my 13 months (yay!) of cooking 100's of Vegan meals, is that many meat dishes actually get their flavour from the delicious herbs, spices and veggies that they're cooked with. THIS one is a prime example. 

So I have no qualms in recreating dishes that emulate traditional meaty ones, because much of the time it's not so much the meat that was loved, but the flavours that went with that meat... 

... and I've now seen that these Veganised dishes can lure many a non-Vegan into the lifestyle, because it helps them to realise they'll miss nothing, food-wise, at all.

And that has to be great news for them, for the animals and our planet.

Read, salivate and make it for non-Vegan friends ;)

Much love to you xx

BBQ pulled 'pork' sandwich - Vegan-Style!

Serves 4-6 depending on how hungry you are ;)

So unbelievably tasty!

Gather:

1 tbsp oil (veg, rapeseed, olive etc)

1 medium onion – quartered and thinly sliced

2 tbsp garlic puree (or approx 8 cloves garlic – crushed)

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp creamed horseradish sauce

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp agave syrup or unrefined brown sugar

Zest of half a lemon (make sure its unwaxed)

*[1 red chilli - deseeded and thinly sliced – optional, for heat lovers]

1 tin chopped plum tomatoes

2 tins braised gluten (mock ‘duck’) - drained, patted dry & shredded OR a large punnet of shiitake mushrooms - shredded into strips OR even 225g tempeh- shredded into strips

Salt and pepper to taste

#Bread rolls to serve

#Coleslaw and salad for the side

Create:

1.  Gently fry the onions in a pan with the oil over a low/medium heat for 5 mins or until soft.

2.  Add the garlic and fry for a further 2 mins.

3.  Add all of the other seasoning ingredients (except the tinned tomatoes & ‘meat’ of choice) and fry for a further 2 minutes – stirring constantly.

4.  Add the tomatoes and simmer gently over a very low heat for 20 minutes or until the sauce thickens.

5.  Add a little water if the mixture appears too dry, add the gluten, mushrooms or tempeh and simmer for a further 5 minutes to warm through.

Sticky BBQ lusciousness!

Enjoy:

Serve on hot toasted rolls (I used ciabatta) topped with homemade coleslaw and a fresh salad on the side! p.s. it’s great with a hot chilli sauce added too.

Cooks tips:

Coleslaw: For this recipe I used a combination of the classic ½ small white cabbage - shredded, 1 red onion – very finely sliced and 3 large carrots – grated, all seasoned with white pepper and mixed with Plamil egg-free mayonnaise.

Salad: totally ‘old school’ with shredded iceberg, tomatoes and cucumber! So it was just like my favourite from somewhere like Hardrock Café!

Crisp fresh 'old school' salad on the side ;)